CHAPTER XXVI.

A TATTOOED FUGITIVE.

Thad did not wait to consult his chums on hearing what the forlorn figure standing amidst the bushes said; he knew they would back him up in his generous impulse.

"If you are an American you'll be doubly welcome here," he called out; "but no matter where you came from, if you're hungry we've got plenty and to spare. Step this way and join us!"

The man did not hesitate after that warm invitation, but hustled forward. They looked curiously at him, and no wonder, for he was apparently no ordinary individual. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and it could be seen that his arms were fairly covered with the most wonderful colored tattoo marks imaginable. Really it looked like the work of an artist in this line; and Bumpus, who had never gazed upon such a sight stared as though the other were a curiosity.

It turned out that this was just what he was, and Thad suspected it the first thing he discovered those tell-tale marks.

"You see," said the stranger, as he joined the scouts, "I'm the wonderful tattooed man of the great circus and Wild West Show that has been exhibiting in Belgium this summer. We got caught when the war broke out so suddenly. Our boss told every one to look out for himself or herself, and with that the whole show went to smash. The last I saw of our Injuns they were being herded up by the authorities of the town where we separated. They were afraid they'd start on the warpath, and scalp everybody, I guess."

"Sit down here on this log," said Allan, "and we'll help you to some coffee and whatever we've got. It's lucky we cooked much more than we needed. I think Bumpus and Giraffe must have expected company, or else overrated their own appetites."

"Bumpus and Giraffe sound good to me!" declared the tall stranger, as he looked with a smile at the two boys designated; "somehow hearing those names gives me a feeling that I'm still with the Big Show. But I want to tell you it's a piece of great luck for me to meet up with you boys. To look for Americans over here is as bad as hunting a needle in a haystack."

"Then you've been having a hard time, I take it?" remarked Thad, as he heaped a pan with food and turned it over to their unexpected guest.

"Hard!" echoed the other. "I'm thankful to be alive, and outside of a dungeon to-night. And what d'ye think it all comes from but my name."

"What might that be?" asked Giraffe.

"The worst any poor man marooned in Belgium or France could own up to right now," replied the other; "it's Kaiser!"

"Oh! my stars!" ejaculated Bumpus. "I should say so; and you couldn't change it, I suppose?"

"I'd been billed under my own name as the greatest freak alive, the man whose body was decorated with more dragons and flags and pretty girls than anything ever seen before. Yes, and until a week ago I was proud of that name of Kaiser. Now it threatens to be the death of me."

He groaned a little, and then started to eating voraciously. After a while, when he had seemingly taken the sharp edge off his appetite, he condescended to explain further, knowing of course that his kind entertainers must be curious to hear his story.

"You see, they know me all over Belgium by now. Crowds would stand and stare at me, and try to ask questions. The boss had to keep an interpreter nearby to answer these. Some of them were terribly foolish. It even seemed to many of these simple people that I was in some way connected by blood with Kaiser Wilhelm; and fool that I was, I never bothered correcting that silly idea. Bitterly have I repented that mistake. It has cost me dearly."

"After the circus disbanded and you had to shift for yourself," remarked Thad, "I suppose you thought to get out of the country before the fighting began?"

"Well, at first I wasn't in any hurry," came the reply, with a shrug of the bony shoulders of the side-show freak. "When I did wake up and get busy it was just too late. You see the people remembered that I was a Kaiser, and they had it in for me. Oh! what I have suffered. Turned back one day, kicked out of a town the next, threatened with prison, and doors shut in my face when I tried to beg or buy something to eat, I've lived the life of a dog for days."

"Well, that was too bad," said the kind-hearted Bumpus; "here, let me fill your tin cup again with coffee, Mr. Kaiser."

"Please don't mention that name again above a whisper, while we're in Belgium," pleaded the other. "It's just like showing a red flag to a mad bull. Call me Bob, if you feel like it, boys. I'll come to any name these days, especially if there's a feed like this goes with it."

"What are you aiming to do next?" asked Thad.

"I'm heading north the best I can," he explained. "When after being kicked and cuffed around I found that it was useless to hope to get to Antwerp where I might steam over to England, I knew that the next best thing for me to do was to cross into the Netherlands, where they wouldn't abuse me on account of my name."

"But are you a German?" asked Giraffe.

"I was born in the good old United States," replied the freak. "I believe my ancestors did come from the Fatherland, but to tell you the truth I haven't a bit of German feeling in me. I'm Yankee to the backbone. I ran away as a boy, and have knocked about the four corners of the world, principally in the Far East, where all this wonderful tattoo work was done for me, a little at a time. When I'm done eating I'll let you see what my body looks like. I'm told that there's nothing like it known."

"Do you like being a freak?" asked Bumpus, innocently.

The man looked at him and smiled. Every one liked Bumpus from the first, because there was something so candid and sincere about him. You could look straight into those blue eyes of his and believe that there was no hypocrisy or deceit lurking back of their depths.

"Well, son, I do and I don't," the other finally replied. "I know now I was a fool to get this done, but once it was started, there could be no rubbing it out, you understand, because it's picked in with indelible colors. It gets me a living by exhibiting myself, and people do lots of mighty queer things for that, in their journey through this old world."

"But if you had the chance again would you allow it to be done?" asked Giraffe, who himself had an anchor in blue upon his arm, of which he had been rather proud in the past.

"Not if I was in my right senses," came the prompt reply. "To tell you the truth the first tattooing I had was given to me against my will when I was held a prisoner among some wild men in Borneo. They thought my white skin was a good background to display the art of their boss tattooer. Later on the crazy idea came to me to have it continued, and then join some show. I think with what little money I've got saved over in Philadelphia I'll buy a farm and settle down, if only I'm lucky enough to get out of this war-cursed country alive."

Later on the fugitive circus freak did let the boys look him over, and all of them united in declaring that he certainly was a wonderful exhibition of the art of tattooing in bright colors. Giraffe mentally decided, however, that he would never allow another anchor, or any other design for that matter, to be placed upon his arms. This awful example had effectually cured his leaning in that direction.

The man sat there for fully two hours and entertained his young hosts with amazing stories connected with his adventurous past. Whether they were all true or not might always be open to suspicion, but then none of the scouts doubted that he had been through a maze of exploits, equal to anything they had ever read in those books so dear to the heart of youth, "Robinson Crusoe," "Swiss Family Robinson," "Gulliver's Travels," "Sindbad the Sailor" and "The Arabian Nights' Entertainment."

Later on they disposed of themselves the best way they could, and managed to secure more or less sleep while the night lasted.

Nothing occurred to disturb them. If there were various sounds heard during the time that the moon rode high in the heavens they were not of a character to cause any alarm.

So morning found them, and breakfast was prepared in much the same fashion as supper had been on the preceding evening. Bob Kaiser was loud in his protestations of gratitude as he shook the hand of each scout at parting. He told them he would never forget what they had done for him; and from that time forth he meant to say a good word for scouts wherever he went.

When the four lads saw him last, as they moved off along the road, he was waving farewell in answer to their salute, before turning his face toward the north.

Upon the whole they were very glad such an opportunity to extend a helping hand had come to them. It must always please a genuine scout to be of assistance to any one in distress; and the fact that the party had been a fellow American added to the satisfaction they felt.

The man had told them he had friends at Amsterdam who would look out for him if only he could get there; and with a reasonable amount of good luck he surely ought to be able to cover the seven miles, more or less, between their camping place and the border, during the day ahead of him.

In fact, Thad almost envied him his resolution to head that way. It seemed the shortest route to safety in those strenuous days when the whole of Belgium was ablaze with excitement, hostile armies battling for supremacy, and every one suspicious of all strangers.

"To-day will decide the question for us," Allan was saying, an hour or so after they had started that morning; "if we manage to pull through up to night time without any more backsets, we can consider it settled that we're going to make Antwerp by this route."

No one disagreed with him. Even Bumpus was figuring what thirty miles "as the crow flies" might mean, when they had to follow varying trails and roads, subject to the whims of any military commands they chanced to meet.

"Something coming ahead there!" announced the ever-watchful Giraffe.

On looking the others could see that a cloud of dust was rising in the direction they were heading. This of course indicated the passage of some considerable number of men or horses along the road.

"Another battery coming from Antwerp and hurrying to the front by this route," speculated Allan, and indeed that seemed the most probable explanation of the disturbance.

"There, I heard what sounded like the clatter of horses' hoofs then," announced Giraffe, with his hand cupped at his ear to imitate the rabbit, which a kindly Nature has so constructed as to be able to throw its ears forward and catch the slightest sound that otherwise would be inaudible.

Thad listened, and as he did so his eyebrows went up as though a suspicion might be passing through his mind that Allan's speculation was altogether wrong.

He too heard the clatter of hoofs now, for they were coming more heavily. To him it seemed as though there were many hundreds of them, and that they pounded the road more like a squadron of cavalry on the gallop.

Thad drew the car to one side of the road, and then stopped his engine. Until the mystery had been solved there was no use trying to proceed further. Perhaps this spot was to mark the high-water line of their advance on Antwerp.

"There, I can see them beginning to show up now!" cried Giraffe.

Moving figures came into view, constantly augmented until there must have been scores amidst the rising dust. No sooner had Thad noticed the fact that they were gray-coated, and that they carried what seemed to be lances, with small pennons fluttering at the ends, than he knew what it meant.

Giraffe voiced what all of them understood by that time when he ejaculated:

"Why, they're German lancers, don't you see, boys; the Uhlans we've heard so much about, the Rough Riders of the Kaiser, and raiding the country to cut off communications between the Belgian army and Brussels. Whew! now we're in the soup!"